Chapter 30
THIRTY
A storm is brewing.
“Adrik,” I gasped, blind with panic as I grasped the sill for support.
He’d gone too close to the mists, that foolish, thick-headed—
Almira closed the window with a snap. “You must hold it back and I must help. If the mist catches him, he will not return.”
“You cannot—”
“I must,” she said firmly. “To save the boy, I must rally my strength once more.”
She took my hand and pulled me with, hobbling down the stairs and through the gates.
Let me see you. Let me taste you. Let me show you what he did to us.
We leaned on each other for strength as we climbed the hill, bracing against wind and needle-sharp ice.
Our faces burned with exertion and tears.
I closed my hand around the still-warm pebble and I felt through my feet into the frozen earth.
The golden roots of my magic lay withered and frozen.
I chose one—the thickest, strongest—and I allowed the thread of power to unspool from me, breathing warmth back into that root.
I groaned with exhaustion, like an ancient tree weathering a gale.
I sent my magic deeper until it hissed and twisted, unwilling to meet the mist. The mist, from which came laboured breaths and pained groans and slow, stalling hoofbeats.
The knot of fear dissolved. In its place bloomed rage.
The mists would not take him from me.
My magic clashed horribly with the storm; with a shriek I recognized only by the sting in my throat as my own. I braced my weight against that churning wall, gasping for breath.
The mist shuddered. Retreated just a sliver, then another. From its heart came a breath, a quickening of hooves.
I held it for as long as I could. By its drain on my strength it felt like hours, but I counted the seconds as they slid past, and I made it only to thirty-six. The thread of magic slipped like sea-slick rope from my fingers and barreled back into me, sending me tumbling into the snow.
“Well done, girl.”
Almira and I made it barely to the burrow before she collapsed. I heaved her into an armchair and bundled her into thick blankets. As I stood trembling in the kitchen, holding myself in a stiff embrace, the wind screeched in my ears.
Let me see you. Let me taste you.
No one had gone to relight the flares.
Almira snapped awake with a hiss. I handed her a cup of tea and nestled beside her into the chair. “They have not returned?”
I shook my head. A stiff silence settled over the house. “Do you think we were too late? That they will return as mindless as Miran and Emond?”
Almira pursed her pale lips. “I cannot say.”
Beneath the blanket I searched for her hand and squeezed it. These people had suffered five years of this nightmare; I was cracking after only two moons.
“There must be dozens affected.”
“Just five,” she said absentmindedly.
Almira tensed, and I knew why. She had misspoken. Five. The old miller. The woman in the briar. Emond. Miran. Nasha. Just five.
“It began only when I arrived,” I breathed. “It began only because of me.”
“We do not know that, girl.”
I untangled myself from the blanket. “You did not tell me.”
“There was no need to stoke your penchant for guilt.” Almira spoke softly and patiently, as if explaining something complicated to a simple mind or to a child.
I grasped for words, but fury had scattered my thoughts.
The humiliation of being kept in the dark turned my mouth bitter.
“I was glad to shoulder the blame, girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“Adrik believes that my weakness is at fault. That whatever force beckons these souls into the forest and hollows their minds was kept at bay by my magic.”
“So you lied to both of us. To what end?”
She hesitated, eyes wary and grave. “To the boy, I lied to spare him the burden of lying to you. To you, I lied—”
“—because you knew I would choose to evacuate.”
“To spare you the burden of having to make an impossible choice.”
“You have no right to claim this was for my good,” I hissed.
“You have no right to make such decisions for me. I took this burden from you. I bear the storm and its weight for this town. What more must I do to prove that I deserve even a scrap of freedom? What else must I endure to be treated as more than a tool?” I spun to the door, anger pushing aside the bone-deep exhaustion.
Before I vanished into the night, I said only, “No wonder Adrik still feels, after all this time, that he must prove himself worthy of this place.”
I chased the wind to the teahouse. There was not a clear thought in my mind but this: That I could not remain in Wildemire if my presence was luring people into the forest. And this: That the town could not brave the winter without me.
I had given it all that I could—had shouldered the burden of the cold and the storm.
I could not bear the weight of these forest-touched souls as well.
We had to abandon this cursed land.
I would not falter, like Almira had, under the weight of such decisions. I would not sacrifice these people to the starving forest. I was the Queen of the Wild, and I would lead them through the storm. I would save them.
But first, I needed to save their king.
A storm was brewing.
I felt it in my bones.
I’d expected to find Zora’s home abandoned, but a sliver of light greeted me, and the crackle of a low fire. It felt like weeks had gone since Zora and I left for the dance, full of mirth and hope. Somehow, little more than a day had passed.
I found Sai with Zora in the parlor. He had piled all the blankets in the house over her and cradled her small hands in his. She trembled, blue-lipped. A sheen veiled her eyes, but they were alive, not horribly bone-white. She sobbed when she saw me, rising from the chair to embrace me.
“Forgive me,” I mumbled into her hair, “The faerie in the swamp… He is the one who abused my powers. He is the one who hunts me. I did not know he had found me. I would have never risked—”
Zora retreated to muster me, to brush my tear-streaked cheek as an older sister might. “What happened?”
“Lorell has gone into the forest.”
Behind us, Sai let out a choked cry. He was upon us in a flash, eyes dark with terror. “How long has he been gone?”
“Not long” I said as I untangled myself from Zora and hurried to my chamber.
“Adrik went to find him.” I stripped quickly of my coat, of the silken robe I still wore beneath, and I dressed in the sturdy wool and leather clothes Kalina had sewn for days spent in the fields.
“The mists are drawing near. I must go into the forest to guide them home.”
“Take the brothers,” ordered Sai.
“The fires,” Zora said with a glance from the window. “I must relight them.”
“You must rest,” I said sharply.
“I will go with her,” Sai muttered. “We will light the flares to guide you home.”
“The lordling is still out there.”
“Then I will take the sword. Let us do something. Leave us to handle this, Evana.”
I had, it seemed, become too much like Adrik; unable to bear sending anyone else into danger. “Fine,” I conceded. “Be safe.”
A lantern floated from its hook over the door and joined me, wiggling with excitement.
From Zora’s palm drifted a flame, much brighter than that of a torch.
It settled in the lantern’s hollow. “Take it with you.” Zora clasped my hands in hers and said sternly, “Do not stray where the light does not reach. If it falters… If it falters, you run.”
I gave her and Sai a kiss on the cheek, heart burning. Then, I hurried out into the storm and to the forge.
Yavor sat with his brothers at the dimly-lit table, bent over a game of cards and remnants of berry-wine from the dance.
“Evana,” he said when I entered, putting the cards aside. “Are you feeling better?”
“Not quite. Did Adrik come to see you?”
He lifted a brow. “Tonight? No, I thought he was with you.”
Ilvar chuckled quietly, sending heat to my cheeks. I reminded myself of his youth to keep from scowling at him. “Lorell has gone to the forest. Adrik went alone to find him.”
There was a stiff silence, the creak of a chair, three darkening faces.
“The bastard,” growled Radan. He reached without another word for his cloak and a discarded scabbard. Ilvar took a gulp and whisked through the back door into the stables.
Yavor stood, mustering me with interest. “You wish to come with us.”
“I must,” I said. “The storm thickens.”
“Adrik will kill me.”
I said, as I followed Ilvar to the horses, “Not if the forest kills him first.”
We rode out within ten minutes. I sat with Radan, who was the best rider of the three, and I clung with terror to him as he spurred his mare. I much preferred the swift, smooth leaps of Adrik’s stag.
None of us spoke until we reached the footbridge past the towngate.
Yavor slowed his horse and raised his lantern.
Tendrils of mist drifted like restless ghosts over the river and disappeared between the birches at the bank.
A thin veil crept over the bridge, stirring like a pond in the breeze.
It came for us, snuffing out the torches.
I clutched Zora’s lantern tightly. Her flame cackled as the mists brushed it. It burned brighter.
“Do not stray from the light,” I said, shivering as a tendril of mist grazed me. Let me see you, it whispered. “I can only clear a narrow path.”
I drew the knife to open a thin slice on my palm, licking the blood before I let a drop seep into the mist-veiled earth. I gripped the still-warm pebble tightly and sent a cautious sliver of magic forth. The mist hissed in anger, parting just wide enough to allow for passage.
“I do not like this,” muttered Radan as the bridge creaked beneath hooves.
Neither did I. My breaths came quick and labored, the air too dense to offer much relief. As we pushed on, stark white walls caged us like a chasm, thickening into something solid that pressed in on us, coiling wraith-like fingers around our throats—
Let me see you. Let me taste you, witch.
“Are you alright?” The brush of Yavor’s hand tore me from my daze.
“Yes,” I gasped. I drew breath and let loose another spark of magic. It burrowed through the snow and into the packed trail, weaving past mist and pines and skeletal thicket.
Find him, I pleaded silently. Take me to him.
There was no sound save the snow-muffled beat of hooves and our own strained breathing. No warmth to be found at all; not beneath the snow-laden trees, nor the leafless copse, nor in the grove. I sent my magic further, far and wide, until it was not spark but blaze, not droplet but flood.
Find him. Bring me to him. Let me save him.
Power spilled from me with ease. I panted, not from exertion, but from wonder.
I sent it forth until it reached the steep hill at the end of the trail.
There, at the base of a white fir, the earth pulsed with three slow heartbeats.
I laughed, relief spilling through me as I snapped back to myself.
The trail had cleared. My magic had driven the mist to the far edge of the treeline, where it lurked as if to sulk.
“Quick,” I said. “At the end of the path.”
We tore through the night, the lantern bouncing in my hand and casting tall, distorted shadows over the undergrowth. As we neared the hill, the flame flickered… faltered.
“Stop!”
My shriek clanked horribly in the tense, quiet air. I dismounted gracelessly and barely clung to the stirrups before my buckling knees gave in.
“Adrik!”
No answer.
“Adrik!”
He was there, I knew it. I’d felt his heart beneath the white fir.
The light of the lantern did not reach there.
It cast its feeble flame only over the horses and the thicket, no farther.
Run. Zora’s command echoed in my head, but I’d taken root there in the soil, squinting where I knew Adrik should be.
Let me see you, hissed the wind. Let me taste you, witch. Let me show you what he did to us.
“Adrik!”
I clutched the still-warm pebble and I felt through my feet into the earth. Past frozen tangles and aching seeds, deeper and deeper until darkness greeted me. I did not hesitate before I plunged.
I became the wind that hissed furiously past naked branches.
I became the dark that gathered, thick as fog, between the trees.
I found him there, still beneath the white fir.
I found him tangled in briarthorns and vines, tied to the trunk.
I howled in fury and I became the thorns, withdrawing my claws from his freezing skin.
I became the vines, loosening my strangling hold.
He did not stir, so I became the wind again and I screeched in his ear.
Get up, I shrieked. Get up, you thick-headed, vain, irritating—
He had the nerve to chuckle.
I snapped back to myself like a string cut loose. He came from the dark, slumped over on the back of his stag, Lorell draped lifelessly over his lap. What if the forest had taken him? What if it had turned him strange? What if his eyes had hollowed into bone-white?
Slowly, as if it cost him all of his strength, Adrik lifted his head. I sobbed with relief. His moss-green gaze tangled with mine.
“Ana,” he breathed, voice cracking with pain, face twisted with anguish.
I stumbled down the trail, blind with fear and relief. Yavor overtook me, freeing Adrik of Lorell’s weight.
“Bastard,” Yavor growled lovingly.
“Ana,” Adrik whispered again.
I reached him, frantic hands finding his skin impossibly cold. A sob broke from me, cracking me wide open.
“Adrik,” I mumbled into his sleeve.
Faintly, I was aware that he lifted me onto his stag.
That he enveloped me as I pressed my back to his chest, and that he buried his face in my hair as we rode, breathing as if he’d been drowning.
I did not notice much else. We might have journeyed the forest for days or mere minutes.
I was lost to the warmth of familiar arms, to the hitching tune of his breath, to the scent of all the things I held dear.
I might have passed out, exhausted from keeping the mist at bay.
I blinked against the glint of well-lit windows cresting the near hills and the bright glare of the flares.
Zora and Sai had come through.
“I will take Lorell to Almira,” said Adrik as we crossed the bridge. “Go to the cottage with the others. I will be there in a moment.”